


Of a damsel in distress, and a knight in a shining Mercedes

by deathorthetoypiano



Category: Silk (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-09
Updated: 2014-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-16 19:11:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2281350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathorthetoypiano/pseuds/deathorthetoypiano
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She scrolled idly through her contacts.  Clive would be, undoubtedly, wrapped around some woman – he had often said that weekends were wasted if they weren’t spent in bed.  Billy... Billy could be anywhere; it didn’t really bear thinking about what Billy might get up to on his time off.  But Caroline, Caroline might be home.  She hesitated, her thumb hovering over the call button.  She hadn’t mentioned any affairs lately, but that meant nothing when it came to her.  Martha knew, at least, that she didn’t live far away.  Even a borrowed bus fare, and the embarrassment of having to ask for it, would be better than walking all the way home in this.  As long as she was in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It wasn’t a surprise, really.  She certainly looked vulnerable.  In leggings and an old jumper on her way home from chambers on a Saturday afternoon, after dropping off papers ready for Monday morning – a few files, the ones still unread, left stacked up on the kitchen table, unopened – no umbrella, in the pouring rain, blonde hair plastered to her cheeks and forehead.  Sheltering in a bus stop as she pulled her phone from her pocket to call a cab, preoccupied and shivering, she hardly gave a thought to keeping her bag close to her.

After the rage at it suddenly being gone, disappearing down the street in the hand of some unknown person in a raincoat, she conceded that at least her phone was still in her hand, her keys still in her pocket.  She had no money, but she always kept a credit card at home, some cash in a drawer at chambers.  Really, in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t the end of the world.  The problem now, however, was getting home.  Though not exactly too far to walk, she was cold and wet and tired.  It seemed pointless to go back to chambers – it was almost as far as home – but buses or cabs were no longer options. 

She scrolled idly through her contacts.  Clive would be, undoubtedly, wrapped around some woman – he had often said that weekends were wasted if they weren’t spent in bed.  Billy... Billy could be anywhere; it didn’t really bear thinking about what Billy might get up to on his time off.  But Caroline, Caroline might be home.  She hesitated, her thumb hovering over the call button.  She hadn’t mentioned any affairs lately, but that meant nothing when it came to her.  Martha knew, at least, that she didn’t live far away.  Even a borrowed bus fare, and the embarrassment of having to ask for it, would be better than walking all the way home in this.  As long as she was in.  She pressed call before she could talk herself out of it.

“Martha?”  She sounded surprised, but not displeased or irritated.  Martha let out a sigh of relief. 

“Caroline, hi.”  She sat down heavily on the bus stop bench, realising too late that it was even wetter, and colder, than she already was.  She shivered.  “Erm.  I’ve just had my bag nicked.  Are you –”

She got no further before Caroline interrupted.  “Darling are you alright?”

“I’m fine.  Are you at home? Can I pop in and borrow a bit of cash so I can get a bus home?”

A pause, some clattering noises, a curse and a thud as she dropped the phone.   “Where are you?  I’m coming to get you.”

“No, no, it’s fine, I can walk.  I’m near Aldgate.”

“Well then.  I’ll come and get you.  Save us both the bus fare, and you won’t be out in this awful weather for so long.”  Martha gave in, then, and ducked her head out of the shelter to check which bus stop she was hiding in.   “I’ll be seven minutes,” she announced, and the line went dead.

Martha smiled, swept a hand over her eyes, trying to get her hair away from them.  It felt disgusting, and she grimaced.  She really would rather Caroline didn’t see her like this at all, but it was too late now.  She stood up, stamped her feet a couple of times, tried to tug her sleeves down over her hands, then gave up, sinking back down onto the bench with a sigh.  But it seemed no time at all before a horn sounded behind her, and a sleek black car – of course she had a car like this – pulled up to the kerb, a door swinging open.  She smiled sheepishly at Caroline as she ducked inside.  “I’m so sorry,” she began, but was silenced by a hand on hers.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”  She turned up the heating, and set off, tackling a complex system of traffic lights before glancing across at her.  “You look dreadful.  What happened?”

Martha stared out the window for a minute or two.  “I was just stupid,” she said eventually, turning to her with a wry smile.  “Stopped paying attention.  I just wanted to get home.”

“We’ve all done it,” Caroline told her gently, though Martha had a feeling she had done nothing of the sort.  She turned down a tiny side road and stopped the car.  “Let’s get you warm.”  Martha frowned.  “What?  Do you really think I was going to just take you home and leave you?  You’re wet through and clearly frozen, your bag’s been stolen, it’s a Saturday. ”  Her tone was little short of impatient – the worried kind – and Martha realised that it would be easier just to let herself be looked after.

Martha followed her inside a building, up four flights of stairs, along a corridor, through a set of swing doors and into an apartment.  The hallway opened up into a wide space, with a high ceiling and huge windows.  Doors led off two of the walls, and beyond the windows was a balcony overlooking the city.  Caroline slipped her shoes off and dropped her keys on the kitchen counter, then disappeared through one of the doorways.  It wasn’t until she started speaking that Martha realised she was supposed to have followed.  She put her head around the door, found that it was her bedroom.  Leaning awkwardly against the door frame, she watched as she moved around the room, chatting away in a manner that was so unlike her public self that Martha could see why other women had felt betrayed – if they had seen her behave like this, then been in court with her, it was almost understandable.  “This will do,” she announced, tugging a pair of soft pyjamas from the top of a pile and handing it to Martha, along with a jumper and a towel.  Martha studied the jumper: it was clearly well-loved, a favourite, full of holes and snags.  She imagined Caroline curled up in it, watching telly, and smiled.  “What?” she asked, but Martha just shook her head, so she continued, “Have a shower, warm up, I’ll make some tea.”

Martha followed her, then, into the bathroom, listening intently as she explained the complex features of the shower, thanked her profusely until she was told to shut up, then got in the shower.  By the time she came out, it was beginning to get dark.  She opened the door, expecting to see Caroline right there, but she was nowhere to be seen.  Martha ran a hand through her hair, still wet, and crept over towards the windows.  The rain had finally stopped, though only just, and all the rooftops were still dripping.  Sure enough, Caroline was leaning on the balcony rail, finishing a cigarette.  Martha watched her, trying not to seem too obvious, if she were to be caught, but she looked lovely like that, against the backdrop of the city lights.  She backed away, retreated to the bathroom to dry her hair.


	2. Chapter 2

When she emerged again, a few minutes later, her hair springing into soft, still slightly damp, curls, Caroline was lying on the sofa, her legs stretched along it, head slightly propped up on a cushion, holding a book open above her.  If she didn't know better, Martha would have thought she had been there the whole time.  She looked up as Martha closed the door behind her.  “Better,” she murmured, and it was impossible to tell whether it was a question or a statement.  Martha just smiled, suddenly lost for words – something, probably the strange turn of events that had her standing in Caroline Warwick’s flat, wearing her clothes, on a Saturday night, had chased all the words out of her head. 

Caroline patted the sofa, gestured to a mug – pale blue, massive, chipped in a couple of places – on the coffee table, and sat up enough to tuck her legs in close enough to her body to make room for Martha to settle in beside her, and switched the television on.  A quiz show was starting, and she blushed.  “My guilty pleasure,” she admitted.  They sat in companionable silence, except when she whispered an answer, grinning when she was right, scowling like a child when wrong.  She was only wrong once.  Martha found herself watching her, rather than the screen, until, without warning, Caroline switched it off.  “Why were you looking at me like that?”  She was frowning, just a little, but mostly she seemed intrigued and amused. 

Martha flinched, tried desperately to look like she had been paying attention to the programme, and looked back at her.  “Mmm?” she tried, though she didn’t even convince herself.  She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths, let her head fall back.  “Much more interesting,” she murmured, eyes still closed. 

“How so?”  Her voice was much quieter, much huskier, than it had been moments before.

Martha shivered and opened her eyes.  She ran a hand through her hair and curled further into the end of the sofa, coyly avoiding Caroline’s eye.  She wanted to run, to hide, to do anything except be here with this lying between them.  She felt exposed and vulnerable, and it was horribly uncomfortable.

Caroline stood up and opened the balcony door again, standing on the threshold and peering out into the dark, arms folded across her chest..  The draught chilled Martha's feet, but it cooled the blush from her cheeks, too, and helped her to get her breathing under control.  She closed her eyes for a moment and tried to calm her heart, but could only chew, hopelessly, at her lip.  "As much as I always enjoy watching you squirm,” Caroline said, finally, her voice still low, “you seem to be forgetting that I made a pass at you months ago.”  She did not turn around, but she seemed to stiffen as she said it, her knuckles whitening as she gripped at her elbows.

Martha’s head snapped up.  “That wasn’t – was it?”  Caroline turned a little and looked back at her over her shoulder, saying nothing, still hugging herself.  “You wanted a place in Chambers,” she added, trying to sound certain, but frowning.  She sat up straight, uncurling herself, staring at Caroline, then looking away.  “I didn’t think you meant it,” she concluded, finally, lamely, scratching absent-mindedly at the back of her neck.

There was a long silence as each tried to guess what the other would do.  “Do you want to know how much I meant it?” Caroline asked, quietly enough that she could pretend she hadn't, leaning her hip against the doorframe.  Martha stood, picked up the packet of cigarettes on the coffee table, and, on slightly unsteady feet, moved past her and out onto the balcony, smiling a little to see that, after all her attempts, she had finally surprised her.  The rain had started up again.  She looked out over the city, the lights flickering in the rain, leant forward over the wall to look down to the street below, and felt a hand close tight around her wrist.  “Don’t do that.”  Martha pulled back from the wall, twisting, but Caroline neither backed off nor let go, and the scratch of her nails against her skin was intoxicating.  She was trapped between her and the wall, Caroline’s body pressed against hers, holding her still.  She was struck, again, by how lovely she looked, even in the rain, in the darkness, the shadows sharpening her cheekbones and softening her jaw.  She watched a raindrop trickle down her cheek, and as she reached up to brush it away, Caroline leant into her touch and sighed.

Martha wasn’t sure what made her laugh – perhaps the strangeness of seeing Caroline so unguarded, perhaps that they were standing in the rain and the dark staring at each other, perhaps because she didn’t know whether she should do anything at all or whether she should just go home – but she did, and it was all she needed to stop Caroline watching her so intently, guessing her every move, so that she could lean in and kiss her.  It didn’t work, exactly: Caroline didn’t seem surprised, didn’t pull away, didn’t stop her or protest, but Martha didn’t want her to, really, just wanted to do it first, to make the decision.  The hand around her wrist slid around her waist instead, the other curled at her neck and catching in her hair.  The ferocity caught her unawares for a moment, before she rested her knuckles against Caroline’s collarbone and twisted her fingers into the back of her jumper, tugging her closer.  It briefly crossed her mind how strange it was to kiss someone shorter than her, how she was used to craning her neck upwards and being tugged around by big, strong hands attached to big, strong men with something to prove.  She liked it.

“What are you thinking about?”

Martha shook her head and stepped forward, backing her towards the open door, smiling at her slight look of alarm.  “Just that we should go inside,” she murmured into her ear, pulling the door shut behind her.  “Kissing in the rain is more romantic in films than in reality.  And besides –” 

But Caroline didn’t let her finish, breaking away suddenly and, with an expert move, twisting so that they tumbled onto the sofa, Martha beneath her, flushed and panting.  “It’ll be terribly awkward, darling,” she whispered, her fingers playing over Martha’s collarbone, “if this isn’t what you were about to suggest.”  Martha said nothing, focused on worming her way beneath the layers of clothing between her and Caroline’s skin.  Cold fingers pressed against a warm back, and Caroline bit her lip, ducking her head and closing her eyes, pressed her knee between Martha’s thighs, and sighed.  “Tell me you want this.  I feel like I’m taking advantage.”

The request was desperate, a need for validation, and Martha wondered how many times she had gone in like this before, following another’s lead, only to be rejected, or told afterwards that she had been wrong.  How anyone could turn her down was beyond her, but really that was neither here nor there.  The thought of it physically hurt, a pain in her chest as she wondered who it had been, why.   “I’ve barged into your home," she told her, trying not to sound overeager, but to be convincing, too, "I’m wearing your clothes, I’ve stolen your cigarettes and jumped you on your balcony.”  She paused, waited for Caroline to smile a little, to look at her, then leant in closer, their lips brushing as she spoke so softly it was hardly more than breathing.  “And honestly, I couldn’t want this more.”

Each of them considered, then, and later, moving off the sofa and into the bedroom, but somehow, other things got in the way.


	3. Chapter 3

Something was touching her arm.

As Martha lay still, focusing on the touch, the way it fluttered around somewhere between her elbow and wrist, never entirely leaving her skin but never touching her firmly either, she remembered where she was.  Her face split into a wide smile that she could not have stopped if she wanted to, and this was greeted with a “Good morning” whispered so close to her ear that it tickled.  Martha twisted to kiss her, falling onto her belly with a huff as Caroline pulled away, laughing, then leant back again anyway.  “Coffee?” she asked, watching with an amused expression as Martha pressed herself along her side, lacing their fingers together lazily.

Martha frowned, then smiled, wriggling away.  “I’ll get it,” she announced, then wriggled too far and hit the floor with a thud.  “Fuck.  And don’t you _dare_ laugh at me,” she added, crawling to her feet and pouting.  To her credit, Caroline looked completely serious, maintaining the perfect poker face even sprawled across the bed.  She waved a hand vaguely towards a robe on the back of a chair, and Martha slipped it on, tying it half-heartedly around her waist and flashing a smile back over her shoulder as she left the room.

Humming along to the radio, she darted around the kitchen, opening all the cupboards until she found coffee, switched on the coffee machine on the countertop, then took the opportunity to look around a little.  It was as she stood on tip-toe to peer at a photograph on a shelf - a man, a woman, three girls, sitting under a tree and dappled with sunlight, smiling fit to burst - that she saw Caroline out of the corner of her eye.  Guiltily, she dropped her heels and stepped away, starting to apologise, but Caroline cut her off.  "My sister's eleventh birthday," she said, a smile twitching at the corner of her mouth, clearly remembering something happy, and private.   Martha blushed as she stepped away, returning to the coffee pot without a word.  "I don't mind, you know," Caroline told her, moving to stand beside her.

Martha chewed her lip, her eyes flicking up at her then down again, then back up to check that she really had seen a smile, before she began to open cupboards again, forgetting where she had seen mugs while looking for coffee, and admitted, "I always was too nosy for my own good."

Caroline nudged her out of the way with her hip and produced two mugs from a cupboard by her head.  "Of course you are. It's what makes you good at your job."

It was the wrong thing to say.  Martha's cheerfulness evaporated as she remembered losing her bag, the files waiting for her attention on the kitchen table, the case that she was nowhere near prepared for, that she couldn't possibly be prepared for now.  Panic rose in her chest, even as she wondered why this in particular was getting to her so badly.  She flinched as Caroline's hand curled around her wrist.

"Darling, you're a Silk, and we don't panic.  Pull yourself together."  Her voice was cold and firm, and, after the softness she had shown just moments before, shocked Martha enough that she could take a few deep breaths before turning and pressing her forehead into Caroline's shoulder.

"I don't have time to get ready.  I couldn't have read all those files if I stayed up all night last night and tonight.  And -"

Caroline rolled her eyes.  "And you were otherwise occupied last night," she interrupted.  "For the first time in quite a while, too, I expect?" Martha pulled away from her, indignant, protesting, but halfheartedly.  It was more of an admission than if she had simply agreed.  Caroline smirked, looking pleased with herself.  "You have to take time for yourself, Miss," she said in a good, if cruel, imitation of Billy.  Martha felt a little cold as she remembered how much they disliked one another.  It rankled, and it worried her.  Would he know about this, would he notice?  He seemed to see everything in her, even when she thought she was so inscrutable.  Would he ask?  "Darling." She looked up, realising as she did so that she had been fiddling nervously with a strand of hair and gritting her teeth a little.  She tried to smile, but it must have seemed more of a grimace, for Caroline sighed and pressed a mug into her hand, then directed her toward the kitchen table.  "Sit," she commanded, and Martha's knees buckled.  For a flicker of a moment, Caroline looked thoughtful before joining her, fixing her with a look that made her sit a little straighter and focus completely on her.  "I want to be clear that this is nothing to do with last night."  She waited for Martha to nod before she launched into something that she had clearly thought out.  "Martha, this job is consuming you. I'm worried about you.  So is Clive, in his own silly way.  Even that fool Billy knows something’s wrong.  I find our eyes meeting when we're looking at you, and we wear the same expressions.”  She sat back in her chair, gazing past Martha and out of the window so fixedly that Martha turned to look, too.  The sun was doing its best to break through the cloud, lighting up parts of buildings in gold while everything around them remained grey.  It was breathtaking.

After a moment, she spun back to look at Caroline and caught her looking, not out of the window, but at her.  She blushed, remembering Caroline catching her doing the same the night before.  "I'm alright," she assured her, reaching across the table to take her hand, and was rewarded with a smile – even a smile as small and worried as that was still a smile.  “I’m just working some things out.”

Caroline picked up her mug and moved to open the balcony door.  The cold air blew in, but she stepped outside without so much as a shiver, barefoot onto the concrete.  Martha shook her head, picked up the cigarettes that were lying on the table, and followed her, tying the robe more tightly around her body.  “You can’t win them all," Caroline told her, turning to lean against the wall, the city framing her. 

“But what if I could?”  Martha’s reply was more of a joke than a real answer, but she realised, as Caroline exhaled slowly and seriously, that it was the wrong kind.  “No, no, I know,” she clarified, hurrying to cover her mistake, “I know I can’t.  But I want to.  I don’t want to give up on someone just because I need to take a bit of time for myself, you know?”  She sat down, gracelessly, on the doorstep, and sighed, focusing intently on lighting a cigarette and trying to ignore the cold. 

As she reached for the ashtray, Caroline settled down beside her, tucking herself in so close that Martha had no choice but to put her free arm around her, to hold her tightly enough that neither of them would slip off of the step. "The thing is, it's the best thing sometimes.  When forcing yourself through means you're not at your best, it's no good for anyone.  Pass the case over, Martha.  Deal with this, and be better for it."  She paused to guide Martha's hand to her mouth so that she could take a drag from her cigarette, taking the time to lace their fingers together around it, scratching lightly with her nails.  "Now then," she continued as she twisted, sliding under Martha's hand, shifting with a practised ease to end up in her lap, curling her fingers into Martha's hair, tilting her head back just enough to make her easy to kiss.  "It's Sunday, and I really, really think we oughtn't waste it out here in the cold."


End file.
